This description relates to determining the visual appeal of items of online content and more particularly, to a network-based method and system for automatically determining the visual appeal of online content items.
Online content items can be displayed on webpages. The content items generally include graphic content mixed with textual content that are selected and arranged to create interesting and informative content items that convey the content item provider's message and hopefully succeeds in getting a viewer to respond to the message. The content items are designed by human designers who apply their creative talents, experience, and rules of thumb to create the content item. If content items were able to be created automatically, a designer's knowledge would be needed to verify the quality of the content item. Most users of content item serving systems are not designers and lack an ability to determine the effectiveness or quality of online content items on their own. Hiring a design agency to check quality and effectiveness may be prohibitively expensive for many users. Using known techniques that aid users in checking the design of the content item are based on static templates that do not take into account the various elements of design that may be known by human designers.